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We forgot how insane it is to pump explosive gas into our houses beacause we’ve gotten so good at it. I was remembering a similar accident near me, and it turne

by jws 8y ago

We forgot how insane it is to pump explosive gas into our houses beacause we’ve gotten so good at it. I was remembering a similar accident near me, and it turned out to be 1982. That’s a lot of unremarkable years in between. (1982) A state of emergency was in effect today after 28 homes and businesses burst into flames within seconds when the pressure in a natural gas line was kicked up accidentally, causing water heaters and furnaces to spit fire like "blowtorches." http://www.gendisasters.com/missouri/18442/centralia-mo-natural-gas-line-explosions-jan-1982 http://www.gendisasters.com/missouri/18442/centralia-mo-natu...

kibwen 8y ago
As much as I love my gas stove, part of me can't help but think that we mostly won't be running gas lines into new houses within a few decades. Both gas and electricity can kill you, but a closed pressurized system of flammable gas is just harder (and more expensive) to engineer, install, and maintain than a wire run. But now I'm curious as to what sort of huge increase in power generation capacity it would theoretically take to cover for what gas heating currently provides...
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Natural gas stoves used to give me the willies. Then one day the big bottom square heating element in my electric stove started making a weird noise. I opened the oven and looked at it for a minute and the thing exploded! In a million years I wouldn’t have thought it was possible. Fortunately I didn’t get hit by any shrapnel. And I got a new oven out of it, which was nice. But now I’m afraid of both cooking methods.
  - ianlevesque 8y ago
    However, your house was still standing.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      Fair point.
- r00fus 8y ago
  Nuclear. Of course big petroleum and hard-left greenies joined forces to kill it before it brought us into the future.
  - JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
    To be clear here, you are saying nuclear generators could have replaced gas stoves and gas water heaters? I don't follow, surely this is a magnitude more risky than nuclear power plants, and way riskier than gas heaters. Electric water heaters do exist after all.
    - karmelapple 8y ago
      I’m pretty sure the poster is saying nuclear power would help provide the additional electricity needed at a plant, and not in individual’s homes, as you seem to suggest.
    - hankhill 8y ago
      why not a network of pressurized liquefied nuclear material similar to gas heat? distribute the steam turbine system such that each house uses only the radiation it needs
- praseodym 8y ago
  In the process of moving to renewable energy, The Netherlands has banned natural gas connections to new houses starting 1 July 2018. This is even though the country has one of the largest gas fields in the world [1]. Electric (induction) cooktops and district heating are very good alternatives to using gas (and safer, even though the gas infrastructure is very good). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field
  - VLM 8y ago
    Much like the biggest farm is not necessarily the most profitable, the Netherlands government reporting office claims peak production was a decade ago, and its all downhill until the mid 2020s (lets say, five years away?) when the Netherlands switches over permanently from being a net producer of natgas to being a net importer. Kind of like how the UK peaked around the turn of the century and has been a net importer for more than a decade, but delayed by maybe 15 years. In this line of business (IT) its all about scaling. The economic models around natgas are hilarious in that nobody scales beyond one, at least in public. So every country on the planet has a natgas economic model where on a scale factor of one, the permanent transition from exporter to importer is "no biggie" because there's an infinite supply of infinite cheap commodity natgas from world trade, so we'll just have some ... permanent inflation from printing money to import all that natgas. That economic model sounds really good scaled to one country, but doesn't work well when scaled to "pretty much every country on the planet at the same time and the global cheap commodity natgas market disappears". There's probably a lot of startup opportunity in "residential natgas disappears".
  - nacnud 8y ago
    What are we going to do with all those dormant pipes? Could some clever startup use them to route physical packets of stuff? :)
    - praseodym 8y ago
      Gas pipes don’t have very large diameters. That being said, they could be used to route fibre optic cables through without digging.
- VLM 8y ago
  We're living in the peak right now of natgas so its no surprise in a couple decades the general public will not be using natgas. Discoveries peaked in the 70s, normal production peaked a decade ago, strange fracking experiments to squeeze the last blood from the rocks is peaking "around now ish". Natgas is vastly more useful to make plastics and fertilizer than to run my clothes dryer, and global demand is completely unconstrained, and economic conditions such as income inequality, demographic changes, etc are only getting worse, so its not controversial at all to claim in a couple decades your average house will not have natgas service. Generally its cheaper to install insulation and better windows than to install more electrical generating capacity. Probably cheaper to install insulation and a heat recovery ventilator than to install natgas fuel-cell cogeneration plants in each basement or triple the number of nuclear reactors. I would imagine this ties into long term planning such as chopping maintenance budgets. If buried gas lines can't be maintained to any standard other than lasting the next 80 years at great expense, and corporate strategy indicates not enough end user consumers will be able to pay $2000/month inflation adjusted to heat their house in twenty years, then just pencil whip the maintenance until the service shuts down. You can see the future of residential natgas in the past of dairy milk delivery, ice block delivery, to some extent postal service, land line phones, and cable TV. You can expect a lot of gas-lighting (oh the pun) about how the replacement services are so much better (solar heating, insulation, etc)
- st26 8y ago
  Personally I suspect a lot of the diehard adherents to gas cooking haven't had a chance to cook with a modern glass top resistance or induction stove. IMO the difference has shrunk dramatically. Water heaters too, electrics have improved and the operating cost difference is really not that big. Electric water heaters might also be extremely valuable for demand response. When it comes to space heating in cold climates though, I don't really know what replaces natural gas. Probably air source heat pumps, but they are still maturing.
  - arielweisberg 8y ago
    Gas infrastructure works when the power is out... It can't survive all natural disasters, but some. When it's -6 degrees outside and you have hot water, heat, and a fireplace that are all still working you'll get it real quick. A furnace does require a generator to run the blower, but it can be a pretty small one and it sips fuel.
    - st26 8y ago
      That's the thing, I've never lived somewhere that gets to -6 and also runs a real chance of multi day power outages. I'm sure it's a different story in some parts of the world, of course.
- AnssiH 8y ago
  FWIW, I don't think we have ever run gas lines to individual homes in large scale here in Finland, and we are obviously in a heating-needed region. Natural gas is 7% of the total energy consumption here (https://www.stat.fi/til/ehk/2018/01/ehk_2018_01_2018-06-27_tie_001_en.html https://www.stat.fi/til/ehk/2018/01/ehk_2018_01_2018-06-27_t...). There are 30.000 homes that have gas connection for cooking, but that is a small fraction of the ~2.700.000 households in Finland ( https://www.gasum.com/en/About-gas/natural-gas-and-lng/Use-of-natural-gas-in-Finland/ https://www.gasum.com/en/About-gas/natural-gas-and-lng/Use-o...). Gas is used for heating, but it is mostly via CHP (Combined Heating and Power) plants that heat water in a district heating network ( https://energia.fi/en/energy_sector_in_finland/energy_production/combined_heat_and_power_generation https://energia.fi/en/energy_sector_in_finland/energy_produc... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating ). For single detached houses, for new houses the most common main heat sources are ground heat (52%) and air heat pumps (18%). with other options being electricity (8%), district heating (9%), water heat pumps (8%) and wood (5%) (Finnish: https://www.suomirakentaa.fi/omakotirakentaja/laemmitys/laemmityksen-valinta https://www.suomirakentaa.fi/omakotirakentaja/laemmitys/laem...). As for existing single detached houses, the most common sources are 44% electricity, 21% wood, 16% oil (Finnish: http://www.stat.fi/tietotrendit/artikkelit/2018/uusiutuva-energia-valtaa-alaa-pientalojen-lammityksessa/ http://www.stat.fi/tietotrendit/artikkelit/2018/uusiutuva-en...) . Energy consumption in households by energy source, type of use, type of building, GWh: https://www.stat.fi/til/asen/2016/asen_2016_2017-11-17_tau_002_en.html https://www.stat.fi/til/asen/2016/asen_2016_2017-11-17_tau_0...
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
> We forgot how insane it is to pump explosive gas into our houses Yet mention that we could have solar panels and batteries for local storage and people will say "we can't have huge banks of batteries in our houses, think of the fire risk!"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- emodendroket 8y ago
  https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1200w/Boston/2011-2020/2018/09/13/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/13182a9579434c89ad28d7d197d71bae-13182a9579434c89ad28d7d197d71bae-0.jpg https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1200w/Boston/2011-2020/2018/09/1... Seems like some of the very people affected have embraced solar power.
village-idiot 8y ago
I think the same about electric car batteries: people fear the volatility of those only because we’ve gotten used to driving around with tanks of the most explosive liquid we have.
geomark 8y ago
We forgot how insane it is to pump explosive gas into our houses... Here in the developing country where I live the locals think Americans are insane for doing this. When I first moved here I thought they were backward because there is no gas piped around. It's all portable refillable tanks that you buy at the corner shop and hook up to your stove. Seems like a recipe for disaster, right? Well yes, there are accidents and an explosion now and then. But it's limited to a single house in most cases. They don't have whole neighborhoods erupting due to failing infrastructure. So maybe I'm changing my mind and being less developed has some very real advantages.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I mean if you prefer that look for a house with oil heating, but it costs a fortune.
  - geomark 8y ago
    I made a terrible oversight. Where I live there is no need for heating. Gas is only used for cooking. So my previous comment does not apply to a huge portion of the population. My bad.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Oh. Well... if you have oil heating (or no heating) you probably have an electric stove. I don't think I've ever seen a house with a gas stove that didn't have gas heat.
      - RHSeeger 8y ago
        If you don't have gas heat, you can get a (large) propane tank for use with a gas stovetop. My first house had such a setup (oil heat).
        emodendroket 8y ago
        Hm. That's new to me. Seems like more trouble than it's worth.
emodendroket 8y ago
The previous state of the art was open flame.

by jws 8y ago

kibwen 8y ago

As much as I love my gas stove, part of me can't help but think that we mostly won't be running gas lines into new houses within a few decades. Both gas and electricity can kill you, but a closed pressurized system of flammable gas is just harder (and more expensive) to engineer, install, and maintain than a wire run. But now I'm curious as to what sort of huge increase in power generation capacity it would theoretically take to cover for what gas heating currently provides...

reaperducer 8y ago
Natural gas stoves used to give me the willies. Then one day the big bottom square heating element in my electric stove started making a weird noise. I opened the oven and looked at it for a minute and the thing exploded! In a million years I wouldn’t have thought it was possible. Fortunately I didn’t get hit by any shrapnel. And I got a new oven out of it, which was nice. But now I’m afraid of both cooking methods.
- ianlevesque 8y ago
  However, your house was still standing.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Fair point.
r00fus 8y ago
Nuclear. Of course big petroleum and hard-left greenies joined forces to kill it before it brought us into the future.
- JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
  To be clear here, you are saying nuclear generators could have replaced gas stoves and gas water heaters? I don't follow, surely this is a magnitude more risky than nuclear power plants, and way riskier than gas heaters. Electric water heaters do exist after all.
  - karmelapple 8y ago
    I’m pretty sure the poster is saying nuclear power would help provide the additional electricity needed at a plant, and not in individual’s homes, as you seem to suggest.
  - hankhill 8y ago
    why not a network of pressurized liquefied nuclear material similar to gas heat? distribute the steam turbine system such that each house uses only the radiation it needs
praseodym 8y ago
In the process of moving to renewable energy, The Netherlands has banned natural gas connections to new houses starting 1 July 2018. This is even though the country has one of the largest gas fields in the world [1]. Electric (induction) cooktops and district heating are very good alternatives to using gas (and safer, even though the gas infrastructure is very good). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field
- VLM 8y ago
  Much like the biggest farm is not necessarily the most profitable, the Netherlands government reporting office claims peak production was a decade ago, and its all downhill until the mid 2020s (lets say, five years away?) when the Netherlands switches over permanently from being a net producer of natgas to being a net importer. Kind of like how the UK peaked around the turn of the century and has been a net importer for more than a decade, but delayed by maybe 15 years. In this line of business (IT) its all about scaling. The economic models around natgas are hilarious in that nobody scales beyond one, at least in public. So every country on the planet has a natgas economic model where on a scale factor of one, the permanent transition from exporter to importer is "no biggie" because there's an infinite supply of infinite cheap commodity natgas from world trade, so we'll just have some ... permanent inflation from printing money to import all that natgas. That economic model sounds really good scaled to one country, but doesn't work well when scaled to "pretty much every country on the planet at the same time and the global cheap commodity natgas market disappears". There's probably a lot of startup opportunity in "residential natgas disappears".
- nacnud 8y ago
  What are we going to do with all those dormant pipes? Could some clever startup use them to route physical packets of stuff? :)
  - praseodym 8y ago
    Gas pipes don’t have very large diameters. That being said, they could be used to route fibre optic cables through without digging.
VLM 8y ago
We're living in the peak right now of natgas so its no surprise in a couple decades the general public will not be using natgas. Discoveries peaked in the 70s, normal production peaked a decade ago, strange fracking experiments to squeeze the last blood from the rocks is peaking "around now ish". Natgas is vastly more useful to make plastics and fertilizer than to run my clothes dryer, and global demand is completely unconstrained, and economic conditions such as income inequality, demographic changes, etc are only getting worse, so its not controversial at all to claim in a couple decades your average house will not have natgas service. Generally its cheaper to install insulation and better windows than to install more electrical generating capacity. Probably cheaper to install insulation and a heat recovery ventilator than to install natgas fuel-cell cogeneration plants in each basement or triple the number of nuclear reactors. I would imagine this ties into long term planning such as chopping maintenance budgets. If buried gas lines can't be maintained to any standard other than lasting the next 80 years at great expense, and corporate strategy indicates not enough end user consumers will be able to pay $2000/month inflation adjusted to heat their house in twenty years, then just pencil whip the maintenance until the service shuts down. You can see the future of residential natgas in the past of dairy milk delivery, ice block delivery, to some extent postal service, land line phones, and cable TV. You can expect a lot of gas-lighting (oh the pun) about how the replacement services are so much better (solar heating, insulation, etc)
st26 8y ago
Personally I suspect a lot of the diehard adherents to gas cooking haven't had a chance to cook with a modern glass top resistance or induction stove. IMO the difference has shrunk dramatically. Water heaters too, electrics have improved and the operating cost difference is really not that big. Electric water heaters might also be extremely valuable for demand response. When it comes to space heating in cold climates though, I don't really know what replaces natural gas. Probably air source heat pumps, but they are still maturing.
- arielweisberg 8y ago
  Gas infrastructure works when the power is out... It can't survive all natural disasters, but some. When it's -6 degrees outside and you have hot water, heat, and a fireplace that are all still working you'll get it real quick. A furnace does require a generator to run the blower, but it can be a pretty small one and it sips fuel.
  - st26 8y ago
    That's the thing, I've never lived somewhere that gets to -6 and also runs a real chance of multi day power outages. I'm sure it's a different story in some parts of the world, of course.
AnssiH 8y ago
FWIW, I don't think we have ever run gas lines to individual homes in large scale here in Finland, and we are obviously in a heating-needed region. Natural gas is 7% of the total energy consumption here (https://www.stat.fi/til/ehk/2018/01/ehk_2018_01_2018-06-27_tie_001_en.html https://www.stat.fi/til/ehk/2018/01/ehk_2018_01_2018-06-27_t...). There are 30.000 homes that have gas connection for cooking, but that is a small fraction of the ~2.700.000 households in Finland ( https://www.gasum.com/en/About-gas/natural-gas-and-lng/Use-of-natural-gas-in-Finland/ https://www.gasum.com/en/About-gas/natural-gas-and-lng/Use-o...). Gas is used for heating, but it is mostly via CHP (Combined Heating and Power) plants that heat water in a district heating network ( https://energia.fi/en/energy_sector_in_finland/energy_production/combined_heat_and_power_generation https://energia.fi/en/energy_sector_in_finland/energy_produc... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating ). For single detached houses, for new houses the most common main heat sources are ground heat (52%) and air heat pumps (18%). with other options being electricity (8%), district heating (9%), water heat pumps (8%) and wood (5%) (Finnish: https://www.suomirakentaa.fi/omakotirakentaja/laemmitys/laemmityksen-valinta https://www.suomirakentaa.fi/omakotirakentaja/laemmitys/laem...). As for existing single detached houses, the most common sources are 44% electricity, 21% wood, 16% oil (Finnish: http://www.stat.fi/tietotrendit/artikkelit/2018/uusiutuva-energia-valtaa-alaa-pientalojen-lammityksessa/ http://www.stat.fi/tietotrendit/artikkelit/2018/uusiutuva-en...) . Energy consumption in households by energy source, type of use, type of building, GWh: https://www.stat.fi/til/asen/2016/asen_2016_2017-11-17_tau_002_en.html https://www.stat.fi/til/asen/2016/asen_2016_2017-11-17_tau_0...

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

> We forgot how insane it is to pump explosive gas into our houses Yet mention that we could have solar panels and batteries for local storage and people will say "we can't have huge banks of batteries in our houses, think of the fire risk!"

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
emodendroket 8y ago
https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1200w/Boston/2011-2020/2018/09/13/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/13182a9579434c89ad28d7d197d71bae-13182a9579434c89ad28d7d197d71bae-0.jpg https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1200w/Boston/2011-2020/2018/09/1... Seems like some of the very people affected have embraced solar power.

village-idiot 8y ago

I think the same about electric car batteries: people fear the volatility of those only because we’ve gotten used to driving around with tanks of the most explosive liquid we have.

geomark 8y ago

We forgot how insane it is to pump explosive gas into our houses... Here in the developing country where I live the locals think Americans are insane for doing this. When I first moved here I thought they were backward because there is no gas piped around. It's all portable refillable tanks that you buy at the corner shop and hook up to your stove. Seems like a recipe for disaster, right? Well yes, there are accidents and an explosion now and then. But it's limited to a single house in most cases. They don't have whole neighborhoods erupting due to failing infrastructure. So maybe I'm changing my mind and being less developed has some very real advantages.

emodendroket 8y ago
I mean if you prefer that look for a house with oil heating, but it costs a fortune.
- geomark 8y ago
  I made a terrible oversight. Where I live there is no need for heating. Gas is only used for cooking. So my previous comment does not apply to a huge portion of the population. My bad.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Oh. Well... if you have oil heating (or no heating) you probably have an electric stove. I don't think I've ever seen a house with a gas stove that didn't have gas heat.
    - RHSeeger 8y ago
      If you don't have gas heat, you can get a (large) propane tank for use with a gas stovetop. My first house had such a setup (oil heat).
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        Hm. That's new to me. Seems like more trouble than it's worth.

emodendroket 8y ago

The previous state of the art was open flame.